Anthony Joshua v Eric Molina Betting Preview

Britain’s IBF World Heavyweight champion Anthony ‘AJ’ Joshua will defend his title for the second time this Saturday 10th December at the Manchester Arena. This time around the boxer hoping to relieve Joshua of his belt will be American Eric ‘Drummer Boy’ Molina, who won the vacant IBF Inter-Continental Heavyweight title by beating former two-weight world champion Tomasz Adamek in April of this year. The bookmakers have Joshua down as the long odds-on favourite to win the match, so is the outcome really a foregone conclusion or can Molina pull off one of the biggest upsets of the year?

Form

Anthony Joshua won a gold medal in the super heavyweight division in the 2012 Olympic Games, and became a professional boxer in July 2013. He became IBF heavyweight champion in April of this year after beating Charles Martin in a match that ended in the second round. He then successfully defended his title by a technical KO in the seventh round against Dominic Breazeale. Joshua is 27-years-old and has won 17 fights from 17 as a professional, with none of them going the distance.

Eric Molina is 34-years-old and turned professional in 2007. He has had 28 fights and has won 25 of them, 19 by knockout and six by decision. His three losses were in his debut fight in March 2007, in January 2012 and in June 2015. That most recent loss was in a match with Deontay Wilder for the WBC Heavyweight title, and although Wilder won by KO in the ninth round, that wasn’t before Molina had managed to hurt his opponent earlier in the fight.

Sports.net’s View

This event is one which looks fairly clear cut from a form perspective, with Anthony Joshua appearing to hold all of the aces. Joshua is younger and boasts an unbeaten record as a professional, with none of his career fights having gone the distance. Molina, by comparison, is a few years older, and has a very good rather than a perfect record. Joshua, at 6’ 6”, is two inches taller than Molina, and has a longer reach (82” as opposed to 79”).

Based on all of that, we expect Joshua to win this match, but the odds available about him doing so are incredibly meagre, and don’t make a bet on his outright success at all attractive. Of more interest to us is the William Hill market that allows us to bet on whether or not the fight will continue beyond the third round. Molina has been good at hurting his opponents even in matches where he ended up losing, and the American will want to make life as difficult as possible for the champion. For those reasons, we will opt to bet on the fight going into the fourth round or beyond.

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